The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to forwarding data traffic in a multi-homed information handling system in a VxLAN.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems are sometimes used to provide a virtual extensible Local Area Network (VxLAN) using network virtualization technology that utilizes a virtual LAN (VLAN)-like encapsulation technique to encapsulate Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) layer 2 Ethernet frames with layer 4 User Datagram Protocol (UDP) datagrams, which can provide enhanced scalability for cloud computing environments and well as other benefits known in the art. VxLAN endpoint devices included in the VxLAN are referred to as VxLAN Tunnel EndPoint (VTEP) devices that operate to terminate VxLAN tunnels provided through the VxLAN, and may be provided by physical or virtual switch devices. Edge devices such as, for example, Provider Edge (PE) devices and Customer Edge (CE) devices, couple to the VxLAN and may transmit data traffic via the VTEP devices to each other. However, the transmission of data traffic from the VxLAN to edge devices can raise some issues.
For example, some CE devices may be provided in a multi-homing configuration (e.g., using Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Ethernet Virtual Private Network (EVPN) multi-homing techniques) with multiple VTEP devices that are each connected that CE device and that operate together as a single device (e.g., a single switch device) in order to provide redundancy and/or other benefits known in the art. In such multi-homing configurations, data traffic such as Broadcast, Unknown Unicast, and Multicast (BUM) data traffic received by the VTEP devices in the multi-homing configuration can result in the VTEP devices providing duplicate traffic to the CE device. Conventional solutions to this issue include BGP EVPN techniques such as using Type 4 Ethernet Segment Routing to elect one of the VTEP devices as a designated forwarder for the BUM data traffic, while having the remaining VTEP devices block that BUM data traffic (i.e., those VTEP devices receive that BUM data traffic but do not forward it to the CE device.) However, such solutions result in a relatively high bandwidth utilization on the link between the designated forwarder VTEP device and the CE device, along with a relatively low bandwidth utilization on the links between the other VTEP devices and the CE device. Such relatively high bandwidth utilization on the link between the designated forwarded VTEP device and the CE device can result in data traffic packet dropping, particularly when that link has relatively high bandwidth utilization for other data traffic.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved multi-homed edge device VxLAN data traffic forwarding system.